propulsion Archive

Roger Shawyer is the original inventor of the Emdrive. He claims to have a new generation EmDrive and has filed for a patent in the UK. The Emdrive is super-controversial propellantless space drive. Many argue that there are problems with …

Glen Robertson has over 30 years of advanced propulsion research experience and development for the NASA – Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL as an Aerospace Technologist. He helped establish the Advanced Propulsion Research Center and conducted/supported many advanced …

An analysis by John Bucknell (x-Spacex senior engineer) describes an 11 meter diameter robotic vehicle with a 6,000-megawatt nuclear thermal rocket in a NTTR arrangement. The rocket would be single stage to orbit and would be immediately be able to …

Los Alamos National Laboratory has a radical new solid propellent for cubesats. Unlike a traditional composite propellant, which mechanically mixes a fuel and an oxidizer into a high explosive, the new propellant ignites an energetic fuel — really a low …

Aerojet Rocketdyne, the nation’s premiere propulsion provider and a subsidiary of Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:AJRD), advocates Solar Electric Propulsion (SEP) as a central element of America’s deep space architecture. During testimony before the Subcommittee on Space in the U.S. …

Researchers from Tohoku University have been trying to find out how the plasma flow is influenced by its environment via laboratory experiments. They are making progress towards creating an electrodeless plasma thruster used to propel spacecraft. There are many methods …

Space Battleship Yamato is a major anime movie series. The original Yamato movie in Japan eclipsed that of the local release of Star Wars. It was followed by over a dozen movie sequels. After aliens attack in 2199, the Earth …

Jordin Kare described his fusion pellet proposal in the 1990s. Pellets (with deuterium and tritium or other fusion gases) are laid down in an outbound track for the spacecraft that will eventually use them, deployed in advance by small spacecraft …

Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory has two NASA grants. Princeton satellite systems and Princeton Plasma Physics Lab will work on the two projects. Phase I STTRs of $125,000 each will run for one year, at which point we have the opportunity …

NASA recognizes within its roadmaps (specifically TA 3.1.6) that development of aneutronic fusion (such as p-11B) reactors with direct energy conversion (over 80%) would be an enabling technology to achieve low specific mass (kg / kW) through the elimination of …